Birthday Cake

My brother Rob's birthday is right before Christmas, so the family always gets together and I  make his birthday cake. They've gotten more extravagant over  the years.  Last year's Devil's Food Layer Cake with Peppermint Frosting was so high, the cake dome wouldn't fit on it. It was on the cover of Bon Appetit so I decided to make this December's cover cake too. It was a Peppermint Meringue Cake with Chocolate Buttercream. It's such a fun project but I usually do a couple of steps the day before.
Here's the cover photo: (What was I thinking, right?)

I started the day before with the meringue layers,(which are just like forgotten cookies), and  the peppermint syrup.
Day two I made the chocolate cake and the chocolate buttercream. Then it was just a matter of putting all of the  12"x4" pieces of cake, meringue, peppermint syrup, and chocolate buttercream together.
Here goes on a meringue layer.

Brushing the peppermint syrup onto the cake layers.

After the top layer of buttercream I decorated with raspberries and mint leaves.

It looked very pretty when we cut into it.